One of the early investors in Tesla, Hotmail and Skype, Tim Draper, said this week that Bitcoin is here to stay, and is going to be bigger than any investment he has seen before. This is not the first time founder of leading venture capital firms, Draper Associates and DFJ has said this. He has been quoted before as saying that by 2022, Bitcoin will have hit $250,000.

Nothing Compares to Bitcoin

The much known Venture Capitalist stated at the Industrial Squared US debate in partnership with the Manhattan Institute’s Adam Smith Society, that he could not even compare the digital currency to his earlier investments in Tesla, Skype and Hotmail put together.

This is bigger than the internet. It is bigger than the Iron Age, the Renaissance. It is bigger than the Industrial Revolution. This affects the entire world and it’s going to be affected in a faster and more prevalent way than you ever imagined.

Draper estimated that in five years, fiat currency will have been drastically overtaken by time and events, and the mode of exchange even in grocery shops will be digital currency:

In five years, you are going to try to buy coffee with fiat currency and they are going to laugh at you because you are not using crypto. I believe that there will be a point at which you will no longer really want any of the fiat currency. I am more secure in my Bitcoin than I am in the money that’s sitting there in Wells Fargo,

Draper claims to have bought 30,000 Bitcoins in 2014 at a U.S Marshals Service auction, and at current market price, they will be worth around $268 million.

Reservations About Bitcoin Security

The Financial Times Managing Editor, Gillian Tett, however highlighted that Bitcoin had more risks since it can easily be hacked and so it’s not wise to put your investment in such a high risk venture.

Patrick Byrne, the CEO for Overstock.com, also present in the debate came to Drapers defense saying that as much as Bitcoin has been hacked more than anything else in history, it has never been defeated:

Last I checked, banks get hacked too. And yeah, Bitcoin is used by unsavory characters, but last I checked, they use U.S dollars too.

There are over 1,500 crypto currencies according to CoinMarketCap.com, but Draper is convinced that Bitcoin has higher chances of maintaining the lead because of its market share. As of Monday, Bitcoin was at 38% at the global market capitalization, followed by Ethereum and Ripple.